Introduction to the special issue on analytics in sports, part I: General sports applications

Abstract

Sports is a rapidly growing application area for analytics. The use of analytics is pervasive in the professional sports community as evidenced by the increased role for those practicing sports analytics in front-office management and coaching. Part I of this Special Issue on Analytics in Sports is devoted to the application of a variety of methodologies to a broad range of sports. The papers analyze golf, hockey, baseball, motorcycle racing, and college football. The methodologies employed draw from many areas of analytics including optimization, probabilistic modeling, and choice models. © 2012 INFORMS.